Accomplish More With a Few Benjamin-Stacking Time Hacks (SB1508)

How can you take control of your life instead of life taking control of you? On today’s special roundtable episode, we’re talking about making the most of your productivity habits. How has your phone robbed you of your productivity? We’re joined by Rob Berger of The Dough Roller Money Podcast, founder and CEO of the financial services firm Sensible Money Dana Anspach, and founder of Afford Anything Paula Pant. They’ll dive into their top productivity tips.

On the second half of the show, we’re joined by MetPro’s Angelo Poli. He and Joe dive into health and fitness. He breaks down top techniques to improve your wellness.

Be sure to stick around for Doug’s baseball-themed trivia!

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

Watch on our YouTube channel:

Our Topic: Changing your habits to become more productive and focused

How to Break Dependence on the Phone (zen habits)

During our conversation you’ll hear us mention:

Filling in the dead time.
Boredom is great for creativity.
The Catch-22 of your phone.
What is your Achilles Heel on your phone?
Keeping track of your phone usage.
Disabling notifications to avoid distractions and getting sucked into bad habits.
Batching your tasks during certain times.
Removing completely tasks that don’t serve you.
Setting time limits for certain activities.
The value of replacing negative activities with positive ones (rather than quitting cold turkey).
The importance of putting systems in place.

Our Contributors

A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.

Rob Berger

Another thanks to Rob Berger for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Rob on his show, The Dough Roller Money Podcast at The Dough Roller Money Podcast.

Check out his hit book Retire Before Mom and Dad: The Simple Numbers Behind A Lifetime of Financial Freedom.

Learn more about Rob by visiting his website https://robberger.com/.

Tune into Rob’s YouTube channel at Rob Berger – YouTube.

Dana Anspach

Another thanks to Dana Anspach for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Dana on his show, The Dough Roller Money Podcast at The Dough Roller Money Podcast.

Learn more about Dana and her financial services firm by visiting Sensible Money.

Check out her hit book Control Your Retirement Destiny: Achieving Financial Security Before The Big Transition.

Check out Sensible Money’s YouTube Channel.

Paula Pant

Check Out Paula’s site and amazing podcast: AffordAnything.com

Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything

Angelo Poli

Thanks to Angelo for joining us today. To learn more about MetPro, visit their website.

Doug’s Game Show Trivia

What is the total payroll for the Boston Red Sox for the 2024 season?

DepositAccounts

Thanks to DepositAccounts.com for sponsoring Stacking Benjamins. DepositsAccounts.com is the #1 place to go when you’re looking to see if your rate is the BEST rate on savings, CDs, money markets, and even checking accounts! Check out ALL of the rates ranked from best to worst (and see the national averages) at DepositAccounts.com.

Mentioned in today’s show

Paula Pant’s sister’s documentary Watch Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake | Netflix Official Site
The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again, by Catherine Price
#495: Cal Newport: The Shocking Secret of Productivity – Afford Anything
#500: LIVE FROM BROOKLYN: Episode 500 with ChooseFI’s Brad Barrett – Afford Anything

Join Us on Monday!

Tune in on Monday as we kick off the next installment of our Greatest Hits Week! Monday’s show takes us back to a conversation with Gabe Karp, discussing conflicts in the workplace.

Miss our last show? Check it out here: The Simple Math of Wealth (SB1507).

Written by: Kevin Bailey

Show transcript

[00:00:00] Doug: Uh, Hey everyone. Just a reminder to tell Joe’s mom, she looks like she lost weight because I accidentally parked on the grass again.

[00:00:11] Dana: Hey guys, mics are hot. Quiet on the set.

[00:00:22] Doug: Live from the YouTube machine. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[00:00:37] On today’s round table discussion, how do you create systems to better control your environment and improve productivity? And how do you put better systems in place for your health so you can enjoy all those Benjamins you’ve stacked? During the first half of the show, we’ll chat with three high performing professionals, including a guy whose retirement strategies are home runs.

[00:01:00] Rob Berger and a woman whose financial advice is Tops, CFP Dana on spot and finally. The designated hitter of the Stacking team from afford anything Paula pant. But that’s not all. Halfway through the show, I’ll share my colossal trivia question, and in the second half of today’s podcast, we’ll chat with Met Pros, health and Wellness Guru Angelo Foley, and now the Casey Stengel of Stacking Benjamins.

[00:01:30] It’s Joe Salt Sea. Hi.

[00:01:37] Joe: Hey everybody, and happy Friday to you. You know, if you had to look up who Casey Stengel was, well then, uh, you’re not alone. Well, and they didn’t get any of the other

[00:01:44] Doug: baseball references in the intro either.

[00:01:48] Joe: None of them at all. But it’s a great day to be a baseball fan. It’s a great day to be a money geek because we’ve got a prestigious panel with us today, by the way, before we get to our panel, hang out at the end of today’s show, the back porch got some big announcements, Doug, big announcements.

[00:02:03] We are headed out on the road. Also some announcements about the show, so make sure you stick around for the end of. End of today’s show, but we’ll get to that later. Today’s show is brought to you by State Farm. If you’re a small business owner, it isn’t just your business, it’s your life. Whatever your business might be, you want someone who understands.

[00:02:21] That’s where a State Farm small business insurance comes in. State Farm agents are small business owners too, and know what it takes to help you personalize your policies for your small business needs. Like a good neighbor, state Farm’s there, talk to your local agent. Today we are going to dive into the productivity that all small business owners and people just trying to manage their lives have with these wonderful people.

[00:02:41] On our screen here on YouTube, let’s start with the woman who’s originally from Nepal, the place I got home from just recently. Paul Pans here. How are you?

[00:02:50] Paula: I am great. It was so cool seeing a picture of you and your spouse and my sister. It’s like the colliding of these two worlds, right? I’ve got my world in the United States with Stacking, Benjamins, and then I’ve got, of course, my world in Nepal and, and those two worlds typically never overlap.

[00:03:09] She was so cool. She is very cool. She’s the cool sister. Yes. Yeah. Yes,

[00:03:14] Joe: yes. No offense, Paula. You’re wonderful. Yeah, no, it’s

[00:03:16] Paula: true. It is a thousand percent true. She, she is the coolest sister. She is, uh, seven years older than me, and so I always looked up to her, you know, I was like, well, one day, like, uh. When I was 11 and she was 18.

[00:03:29] Like, so cool.

[00:03:30] Joe: Yeah. You, you know how you always start with, you always start with, so what do you do for a living? And she’s like, I’m a documentary filmmaker. I’m like, oh,

[00:03:38] Paula: wow. So she, so the same month that, uh, that my movie on Netflix came out, she had a three part series on Netflix in the same month. Right.

[00:03:48] You’ll never be enough. You’ll never be f It’s

[00:03:50] Doug: such a big sister

[00:03:51] Joe: move.

[00:03:52] Doug: It’s

[00:03:53] Joe: such, oh, you had, oh, you had one thing on Netflix. How cute.

[00:03:57] Paula: Yeah, that’s so exactly. That’s so great. Exactly. Well, and, and hers, if anybody wants to watch it, I’m, I’m gonna plug it right now. Oh shoot, what was it called? I think it was called the, it’s about the earthquake.

[00:04:08] Earthquake, yeah. I think it might have been called Earthquake or Aftershock. I don’t remember. I don remember the name. We’ll, it Paul in

[00:04:14] Joe: the show notes because I will find it and we will link to it. Perfect. I can’t wait to see it. Yeah, it’s all

[00:04:18] Paula: about the earthquake that happened in Nepal in 2015. Great stuff.

[00:04:22] Joe: And boy, just still the effects of that earthquake as we went around kept Mandu. Yeah, it was, it was incredible, by the way, Nepalese people, amazing. But this is not the Nepal show. This is a show about productivity and let’s say hello to a gentleman who I think of as maybe the most productive man in personal finance.

[00:04:37] Rob Berger’s

[00:04:38] Rob: here. Hey. Hey. How’s it going? It’s going well, man. How are you? I’ve never been to Nepal. I’ve been to Naples. I don’t know. Probably not the same thing, just one vowel off. And, and I’ve never had a show on Netflix, but I have subscribed to Netflix, so I feel kind of a bond here. I don’t know how I know

[00:04:53] Joe: Rob.

[00:04:53] I felt the same. I’m like, I watched Netflix this morning. Does, do I get any points for that? Yeah. So for people that don’t follow your brand, you were Mr. Do Roller, now you are Mr. YouTube. You’ve got this awesome YouTube channel where you have a lot of fun.

[00:05:07] Rob: It is, it’s a blast. Just about retirement, basically.

[00:05:10] My own attempts to fi figure it out and, uh, not run outta money before I die is basically the goal. We’ll see how I do. But yeah, it’s been a lot of fun.

[00:05:18] Joe: Well, I think knowing you for a long time, Rob, you’re gonna do just fine. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll preview the ending. You’re gonna do just great. And a woman who’s also I’m sure doing just great, uh, from her perch, Arizona.

[00:05:30] Dana Ock joins us. How are you?

[00:05:32] Dana: I am doing great and I also do not have a documentary or anything on Netflix, but. I am listed in the IMDB and oh, had a brother who was trying to be an actor in New York City for years. And then I was on some Business Fox show for maybe 30 seconds. And somehow that got me listed in there and so it became a joke in the family.

[00:05:54] I got there before you. Did

[00:05:57] Joe: you Like you could say that at parties now, Dana, you’re like, you know who I am. I’m on Imdv. Yeah. Well tell everybody about sensible money and what you do.

[00:06:04] Dana: We are a financial services firm that actually specializes in making sure retirees don’t run outta money. So I understand what you’re going through, Rob.

[00:06:13] Um, it’s what we help people with. It’s all we do and we have those kind of conversations all the time. How much is someone gonna spend, how long it’s gonna last? How do we make it last longer? And all of the anxiety, it’s, it’s a really different phase of life where, um, you have to be more careful about the decisions you make financially.

[00:06:30] Joe: Well, I’m so glad that you’re here with us, along with Rob and Paula and Neighbor Doug and I. We are about to talk about not retirement. Today, we’re gonna talk about productivity. You guys, uh, I, I think none of the three of you think of yourself as productivity experts, however you get a lot done in the areas that you want to get done.

[00:06:48] And I think of the three of you as people who really take control of your life instead of life taking control of you. So we’re gonna talk about that today on our health and wellness episode, but before that, we need to keep this show free for everybody. So if you can hang out with us for just a couple minutes while we hear from our awesome sponsors, we’ll be right back to start the show.

[00:07:06] All right. We got Rob, Dana, and Paula here. Let’s get moving.

[00:07:15] All right. The inspiration for today’s piece comes from a plug I used to read a lot. I don’t know. I don’t know, guys, if you guys used to read this blog all the time, though. It is, it is Zen Habits. Rob, have you read Zen Habits? Oh,

[00:07:26] Rob: yes.

[00:07:26] Joe: Many, many times. I don’t know if he wrote less or if I just stopped reading him so much.

[00:07:32] Uh, do you still read him consistently? Yeah,

[00:07:34] Rob: I, I read almost everything through a feed, and so when things get published, I see it and, uh, so I’ve kept up with it. I, I don’t know what his publishing schedule is now. But yeah, I’ve kept up with his, his blog for quite a long time.

[00:07:46] Paula: Yeah. Paula, Dana, do you guys read, read, uh, Zen Habits?

[00:07:49] I used to back in 20 11, 20 12, 20 13. I used to read a lot of blogs and at that time I, uh, loved Zen Habits. It was one of my top, and, and it still is. I still love it, but I just don’t read blogs anymore.

[00:08:02] Joe: Yeah. Isn’t that funny? Me too. I think you and I are on the same train there. Paula. Dana, how about you?

[00:08:06] Yeah,

[00:08:06] Dana: I hadn’t before, right before the show, so.

[00:08:11] Joe: Leo has a great point here. He says, how to break dependence on the phone. And the reason this is important to me, guys, is that I’ve been reading recently a book by an author who I saw her Ted Talk recently. Uh, her name’s Catherine Price, people watching us on YouTube.

[00:08:28] I’ll put the book here. It’s called The Power of Fun, which is how to feel alive again, and she has a chapter in here about why we feel dead inside. That is the title of the chapter, why We Feel Dead. You know Why She says, we feel dead. We feel dead because of our phone and what our phone is doing to us physiologically, that we are consistently getting these dopamine hits from our phone, which makes us bored with everyday life.

[00:08:52] We find that some of the prefrontal cortex work that our body usually has in place, the people, the wizards of technology, have found a way to get around this safeguard where usually they go, whoa, hey, that’s enough dopamine. We, we continue to get more. There’s so many scientific reasons why our phone is bad for us.

[00:09:11] I wanna ask all of you guys, what is the phone stolen from you? Uh, Dana, let’s start with you. Have you ever had a time where you had to go, whoa, wait a minute. The phone’s ruining my life.

[00:09:20] Dana: Well, it probably almost stole this show appearance from me. So, as you guys know, I almost missed showing up on time. It was on my calendar.

[00:09:30] I had reminders. I was trying to finish, uh, something for a client before the show started. My phone usually stays face down on my desk. It always has to be near me because you have all the two factor authentications now to get into everything. Yeah, but usually I leave it face down, so I won’t see any kind of incoming calls or texts.

[00:09:47] But I happened to look at it. My husband had called three minutes ago. He never calls. I call him back, chat about something he needed. Then a text comes in from my sister. I respond to that. I lose track of time. I go back to the client thing and next thing you know, Karen’s emailing me saying, Dana, hey, are you showing up on this YouTube show?

[00:10:05] They’re starting in 60 seconds. That’s a prime example right there of how just not being really conscious about when you pick it up and when you do it can just totally get you sucked down the rabbit hole.

[00:10:16] Joe: But what’s funny is in this case it feels like it was half you trying to get away from your phone, right?

[00:10:20] You put your phone face down, you turn your notifications off. ’cause as you know, those will kill your productivity.

[00:10:26] Dana: Yep. I went through a, A leadership course, it’s a company called Stagin that offers this leadership course and they have a whole section titled Lose the Electronic Leash. It’s all about turning your notifications off so all my notifications on every app of my phone are turned off.

[00:10:41] I don’t, all my sounds stays off now my family doesn’t like it ’cause I don’t respond to text messages instantly. Right. My phone might stay in the other part of the house, but it’s amazing as much as I try to be intentional about it, leaving it face down at work. So I can’t, I wouldn’t hear a text come in, but I’d still see it if it was face up reading that blog.

[00:11:00] It’s like, yeah. I still wonder how many times I pick it up a day. Probably a lot more than I think.

[00:11:07] Joe: Yeah. I didn’t realize how much I picked up my phone until I started reading Catherine Price’s book and then I, I thought, no, I’m pretty good with this. And I thought I still suck at this. I, I thought I was good.

[00:11:16] Rob, how about you? Has there been a time when the phone was, uh, was killing productivity?

[00:11:21] Rob: Absolutely. In a, in a couple of ways. I mean, one was it, I would use it to fill up all of the dead space in the day, but also including when I’m with family friends or to stoplight, I would find myself on my phone and I would put it places where I couldn’t get it.

[00:11:36] So if my wife and I go out for dinner, I give it to her. I either don’t take it in the restaurant or I give it to her and she puts it in her purse. I ha that was just the only way I could, maybe I just don’t have the self-discipline. I, I needed to get away from it. Uh, and I took a number of apps off. So that was one thing.

[00:11:50] In terms of productivity, and this is still an issue, I haven’t conquered this one, but I play a lot of, of speed chess. I know real exciting stuff, but speed chess online, whether it’s the phone, my, my iPad, the computer. It can zap literally hours from the day. And so I’ve had to really fight that. In terms of productivity, I, I do it a couple of different ways.

[00:12:11] One is to just use my laptop because playing, if you ever wanna play speed chess, the laptop is not the way to do it. It’s just too difficult. And, uh, so if I really wanna be productive, I get away from the phone or the iPad or the, the desktop where I could be sucked into playing two hours of speed chess and I’ll just use my laptop to write or whatever I’m doing, and that helps me get, get past that.

[00:12:33] But yeah, playing online chess has been a, a big productivity killer for me. I.

[00:12:38] Joe: It’s interesting how, initially it’s fun, but later on you feel like it’s not, it’s not Rob. True fun. Uh, Catherine Price calls it true fun. It’s kind of garbage time.

[00:12:48] Rob: Well, it’s fun when I’m winning. Not so much fun when I’m losing.

[00:12:51] I don’t know. But the thing is, I play on chess on chess.com and they will give you a summary. You play, you, you spent, you know, 500 hours this past year. You know, the number of hours I spent. Now they give you the summary. It’s uh, it was eye-opening.

[00:13:05] Joe: I love what you said about though filling in the dead time.

[00:13:08] Yeah, because one thing Catherine Price talks about in her book and something that Leo kind of hints at here, which is the boredom. Boredom is great for creativity and we become much less creative. In our life when we don’t give ourself time to get the wheel spinning and every time we pick up our phone, I mean, the people behind technology are very happy to fill every single moment of our day with stuff.

[00:13:33] That, by the way, also doesn’t help us physiologically. Like my ability to go out and go for a walk is gone. If I can fill it by just flipping through my phone, like my body gets that gets that hit right away. I think OG referenced a study on a recent show about that too, about how if we watch videos of people working out our body feels like our brain is like, okay, well I got the workout stuff done, even though you didn’t do anything right, physiologically got none of it, but your brain’s like, oh yeah man, I feel, I feel great.

[00:14:01] Paula, how about you and the phone?

[00:14:03] Paula: Instagram. Instagram is my achilles heel. It happened today where I needed, or I, I wanted to put up a post on Instagram, so I wanted to, you know, that there’s consumption and creation, right? I wanted to go on Instagram as a creator and make a reel about episode 500, a particular podcast episode that just came out.

[00:14:23] What happened instead, all of a sudden, I’m, I’m scrolling, I’m scrolling, I’m scrolling, I’m scrolling. Who knows how much time passed. And then I look up in a daze and I’m like, well, what, what was I doing? What, why am I here? What was I doing again? You know, put the phone down, go back to, and then I’m like, oh, that’s right.

[00:14:41] I wanted to make a reel. Pick the phone back up again. Uh, yeah. It’s so

[00:14:45] Joe: frustrating. Instagram was that for me, Paula, until I discovered TikTok. Once I discovered TikTok, then TikTok became my giant sucking sound. That algorithms got me. Yeah, just it, it knows exactly what, Ooh, look at this model trains. And then right after that, ooh, movies, Ooh, look at long distance running video.

[00:15:03] Like all these crazy, whatever I like the TikTok algorithm has, has, has totally got me.

[00:15:09] Paula: I removed TikTok from my phone and now I pay somebody to go onto TikTok on my behalf. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:16] Joe: That’s, it’s, it’s great advice. Yes. Yeah. Well, speaking of that, let’s talk about Leo’s tips here, because he starts off Dana, number one, he says, become more mindful of your phone usage.

[00:15:27] And you referenced that the reason I came to you is you referenced that, that maybe you need to start keeping track of how often you go to your phone.

[00:15:34] Dana: Yeah. I think keeping track of it, and for me, the mindfulness also has to do with the notifications. I. Think about how many things you have dinging at you and making noises and popping up and you know, just how many are really important or have any meaning.

[00:15:49] And so turning those all off made a huge difference for me, just because even when I did pick up my phone, they weren’t sucking my attention in my nemesis is Twitter, so it’s Instagram for Paula and TikTok for you, Joe. It’s Twitter for me. Like I can read, I love just reading everybody’s comments and, and things like that.

[00:16:09] And then of course I, I would realize I was spending an hour every morning. I. When I would wake up with coffee, just scrolling through Twitter. And so now I’ve given myself 15 minutes and what I probably need to do is set a timer with like a, like, like the old kitchen baking timer, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:16:26] And just be like, done, right? When that goes off, you’re gonna go work out. Now you’re gonna do something else, but you’re gonna put the phone down and, and you’re gonna give yourself a time limit. But that, that would be part of that mindfulness.

[00:16:38] Joe: I gotta say Dana, turning off notifications was a number one for me and my spouse, Cheryl also gets very frustrated ’cause she’s like, I can’t reach you.

[00:16:46] And I’m like, but that’s on purpose because I got stuff that I’m trying to get done and if I have my notifications on, I will get sucked into stuff that I don’t, I don’t want to have happen. Yeah, I love that. How do you though, Dana, how do you then set aside time? You talked about, you know, we had this guy on at the beginning of the year, Eric Kalman, who talked about something he called cowboy fencing, where he would take.

[00:17:06] Amounts of time and he would block them off on his calendar and it was specifically for X activity that had nothing to do with, you know, the phone of social media of whatever and notifications off during this hour I’m doing this thing. It sounds like you’re doing a little bit of that too.

[00:17:24] Dana: Well, my notifications just stay off permanently, so ever since I first tried that, it was several years ago now, it was like, um.

[00:17:32] I don’t know. It was like a relief. Like I remember the first week I did it, it was so peaceful and calm feeling. It was like, wow, you know, same on my computer. No email popups, no slack popups like I choose, you know, when I want to go focus my attention on these things, so, you know. I’ll just never forget that calm, peace feeling.

[00:17:55] So I never wanna go back. Right. I don’t wanna go back. Yeah. But in terms of setting time slots, like I’ve never, I’ve not, haven’t gotten nap specific, but typically my time to browse on Twitter would never be during the day. Right. It’s first thing, um, when I’m have coffee in the morning or it’s, I get home after work and my husband might still be finishing up and so I just have that dead time that Rob was talking about.

[00:18:18] Right. And so my dead time will get used up by going and browsing on Twitter. Now I haven’t found anything else yet that I would replace that with. Partly, I guess I get a lot of good ideas from Twitter, so maybe in my brain it’s not entirely dead time where I used to feel like I wasted time was Facebook, so I just don’t go on anymore.

[00:18:40] Right. I, you know, that’s where I’ll get into the endless scrolling of things on Facebook. So those kinds of things that I felt like they weren’t adding any value, I just, I took them out. I was like, I don’t, I don’t wanna spend time doing this anymore.

[00:18:54] Joe: I do love two ideas there. Number one is figuring out what it is about Twitter that works for you.

[00:18:59] What is it about social media that’s working for you? Instead of just doing the doom scroll, like Paula and I were talking about, instead of doing that, going, this is what I’m here to do. I’m here to get creative ideas for my next piece. And then setting that timer I really like around, around for 15 minutes.

[00:19:15] Rob, you talked about with other people, right? Being at dinner with your spouse and putting the phone down or handing it to your wife. I love, I love that idea too. What other hacks do you use to make sure that that phone is put in its place?

[00:19:28] Rob: Well, I’ve taken some apps just completely off my phone. The downside is it’s pretty easy to put them back.

[00:19:33] So you’ve, you know, that doesn’t necessarily solve the problem, but it’s worked for me. I, I don’t have a lot of the social media apps on my phone. The other thing I do, and this goes beyond just the phone, but it kind of gets to the timer issue that Dana mentioned, but this is a little different, is I. I will set up 25 minute increments where I’m gonna work for 25 minutes.

[00:19:50] I set a timer. It’s long enough to get something done, but it’s short enough so that like three minutes in and I think to myself, I really want to check my phone, or in my case, play speed chess. It’s a short enough time period that I can resist it and get 25 minutes of, of work in, which kind of sounds pathetic now that I, I say it, but you know, I actually get a fair amount done in that short spurt and then, you know, maybe take five or 10 minutes to do whatever.

[00:20:15] And so I’ll do, I’ll cycle through those 25 minute sessions. And actually, for me, that’s worked really well and I get a lot done.

[00:20:22] Joe: You do this thing that Eric Alman on our show talked about that, and you fence off time go 25 minutes. I’m doing this.

[00:20:28] Rob: Yeah. I, I don’t know my calendar. I tried that. It looks good on the calendar.

[00:20:32] I can even make it a different color and I feel good about myself. Yeah. Yeah. The problem is I completely ignore my calendar. So, but yeah, it’s the same basic idea, right? I’m just doing it just with, uh, you know, my watch and a, and a timer.

[00:20:44] Joe: I gotta say something else, Rob, too, that you kind of brought up and I’m, I’m not sure where to bring this up, so I will now, the thing that I think everybody listening to this also needs to know everybody hanging out with us, is that when you’re in a conversation with somebody, you talked about being at dinner with your spouse.

[00:20:58] The thing that drives me crazy is when somebody has a smart watch on and they’ve got their notifications on and they continually get their notification bump and they check it. I’ve got this wonderful friend named Todd. Todd’s a great guy, but Todd has his notifications on his phone. You cannot have a conversation with Todd without him telling you inadvertently that this conversation isn’t as important as what’s going on, on my phone over and over and over and over.

[00:21:24] And I know Todd doesn’t mean that, but I think that’s the message that we all, we all get Rob, when we see somebody who’s got the notifications on,

[00:21:30] Rob: I’m sorry Joe, can you repeat that? What was that again?

[00:21:33] ?: I,

[00:21:34] Rob: I think I normally kind of do okay in that area. I probably am annoying in, uh, countless other ways in a conversation, but I think for the most part.

[00:21:43] I avoid the notification syndrome Well,

[00:21:45] Joe: but that’s what I like about you. The reason I wanna bring it up was that I like the fact that you hand the phone to your spouse or you turn it upside down. That is one thing I do when I go out to dinner with somebody. I make a, I make a big deal. I wanna make sure they see it, that I take the phone and I turn it upside down and I put it in the, out in the middle of the table.

[00:22:02] I put my glasses on top of it too, so that I have to pick up my glasses to pick up my phone, which always is that speed bump that we’ve been talking about. Paula, how about you? What, what are some things you put in place to make sure that Instagram doesn’t kill your whole day?

[00:22:15] Paula: There are a few things.

[00:22:15] Number one, on the topic of watches, I don’t have any notifications set up on my watch. The only thing that I get on my watch is if I’m in an, an environment where the decibels, where a allowed environment that’s over 90 decibels, my watch will buzz. I think that’s pretty much the only notification that I get.

[00:22:32] Everything else I can,

[00:22:33] Joe: you can, you set it up ahead of time where it’s over 90 decibels. It, it actually gives you notifications all then. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:38] Paula: Go, go into Apple Health. That’s cool. That is cool. So that I leave set up because if I’m in a loud environment, it reminds me to put, uh, earbuds in and so I have earbuds attached to my key chain.

[00:22:49] Not earbuds, um, earplugs. That’s what I mean. Ear plugs. Ear plugs.

[00:22:52] Joe: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what else do you do?

[00:22:55] Paula: Uh, so with regard to Instagram, I have a timer set up on my phone such that after 30 minutes, I, I get an allotment of 30 minutes per day. And after 30 minutes it times out. The workaround, however, is that when it times out, this little thing pops up on the bottom of the screen.

[00:23:13] That’s like, you can choose like one more minute, 15 more minutes, or ignore for today. And so I definitely, it’s like the equivalent of hitting the snooze button. I definitely keep hitting the like 15 more minutes, you know? But it does make it conscious because, you know, you can hit the 15 more minutes button once, but if you do it like two or three times, you’re like, okay, this is.

[00:23:35] This is my third time hitting the 15 more minutes button. This is, this is a problem. Now,

[00:23:41] Joe: is there a way to change that though? I mean, I like the idea of you’re like, okay, I need more minutes, but maybe fifteen’s too long. Maybe you could do it every five. Can you change it?

[00:23:48] Dana: Yeah. I don’t, I’m not aware.

[00:23:50] Automatic shutdown, you know, so it just overrules you and says, Nope, sorry dude. Too many, too many days in a row we’re shut you down. You

[00:23:57] Doug: can’t, I’ve looked into it. Those are your options. And so I have honestly just gotten to hitting ignore for today. ’cause I know I’m not disciplined enough to just put it down.

[00:24:06] Oh yeah. I’m

[00:24:07] Joe: a failure. I think one of the big keys for me on this topic is education. The more you find out how physiologically your phone is. Mm-Hmm. Subverting all of the natural instincts that we have and how technology’s gotten around that. Like this book, the Power of Fun, scared the Hell Outta me.

[00:24:21] Like it, it completely, I went, wow, I am wrecking my life by not being in control. Uh, biggest thing in this piece that we really didn’t spend much time talking about, Dana, that, that you’d like to try going forward, or biggest takeaway from Leo’s piece here. What would you say that it is?

[00:24:38] Dana: I. Well, I wanna try that timer that Paul just mentioned.

[00:24:41] I didn’t know that was a setting on the phone. And so I think that’s really interesting. I would love an alert to come up, like for me, for Twitter, you know, sorry, 15 minutes. So I, I really like that idea.

[00:24:52] Joe: Yeah. Rob, how about you?

[00:24:53] Rob: Well, I think awareness is sort of the, the big thing. I think he mentions maybe actually recording all of your time, which is probably not something that I would do.

[00:25:00] But you know, at least with iPhones, they have an app that will tell you, you know, weekly or whatever, how much time you’ve spent on, on different apps. And that to me can be, that’s pretty eye-opening. And uh, it doesn’t stop me from playing more speed chess, by the way. But you can’t fix a problem until you’re at least aware that you have it.

[00:25:17] And so that to me was an important part of, uh, what he was saying. It’s funny how this

[00:25:22] Joe: tracks with other goals too. You know, we talked about retirement planning earlier. It’s awful. Like you can’t fix a problem unless you’re aware of it. Yeah. You can’t fix your retirement unless you know where the issues are.

[00:25:33] I love how this tracks to other goals. Paula, how about you?

[00:25:35] Paula: Well, so one of the, uh, pieces of advice that, uh, Leo Baan Zen Habits gave, reminded me. It, it echoed a advice that I heard from Professor Cal Newport who also covers this, and it is, replace it with other meaningful activities. Mm-Hmm. So, Dr. Newport, he actually ran an experiment once where he, he had a group of individuals, he, uh, tried to get them to, um, remove social media from their phone for 30 days.

[00:26:00] And what he found was that the people who tried to just like white knuckle their way through it and operate with just, uh, sheer willpower didn’t make it. But the group that was most likely to have social media removed from their phone for 30 days were people who consciously started incorporating other meaningful activities into their lives.

[00:26:19] So, and it could just be something as simple as, I’m gonna go to the library, but things like that. He found that that was, uh, a significant delineation.

[00:26:28] Joe: It’s funny you say that because Catherine Price, who I’ve referenced a few times, Catherine, she took up the guitar and joined a group of people that were learning to play the guitar and she started rowing, uh, with a rowing coach and specifically filling that time with stuff that was, was more meaningful.

[00:26:43] So absolutely love that. And I also love, you know, how often guys have you heard that when it comes to financial success, discipline is the way to go? And yet I think all three of us can agree it’s not about discipline, it’s about

[00:26:54] Rob: systems.

[00:26:55] Dana: Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent.

[00:26:57] Rob: With the right systems, you don’t have to worry about the discipline other than to set the systems up.

[00:27:01] And then it takes care of itself.

[00:27:03] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Work on systems, everybody. All right. Unfortunately, that’s gonna do it for this part of the show. You know what we’re gonna link to this piece from Leo ba boa. I’ll also reference, uh, Catherine Price’s book. I’ll reference, I know that you interviewed Cal Newport, Paula Pant.

[00:27:16] Mm-Hmm. Uh, so we’ll, we’ll also put that in our show notes. We got Kevin here hanging out with us live on YouTube. So Kevin, make sure you put those in our show notes. Uh, Kevin does a fantastic job with our, with our show notes here for all the episodes in the second half of the show. We’re gonna talk Health and Wellness with Angela Polley from Met Pro.

[00:27:34] We’re gonna continue now that we’ve hopefully helped you begin to curb your addiction to the phone. Let’s help you get better, exercise, better food, and make more of those Benjamins you’re Stacking. But before we do that, we have at the midway point of every episode this amazing, cutthroat competition, which is, which is a year long trivia competition between our three frequent contributors, which are our own og who is not here today.

[00:28:00] So Rob, you’ll play on behalf of og, also Lezo not here today. Dana, you’ll play on Team Penso and, uh, Paula Pant is here. Paula, you’re gonna play on team Paula, if you don’t mind. That’ll be, that’ll be fine.

[00:28:15] Paula: Can I trade?

[00:28:18] Joe: I was gonna say, Paula, that brings up some good news and bad news. You want the good news first or the bad news? Good news first. Yeah. Well, the good news is, is you get to guess last because as Paula Perennially is, she’s in last place with three. OG and Len both have four. And the bad news for you, Dana, is that because Len is our winner from last year, you’re gonna guess first and Rob, you’re going to guess second.

[00:28:42] So I have never

[00:28:43] Rob: been more nervous than I am right now, as you should be. Yes. My wedding day wasn’t as scary as this

[00:28:50] Joe: high stakes here, Rob, high stakes. And if, if, if you didn’t get it from our open, today’s, uh, trivia question might be about baseball, but, but let’s see. Oh,

[00:29:00] Rob: oh no. Pete P Road.

[00:29:06] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug on this date in 1912, the first ever home run was hit at Fenway Park leading the Boston home team to a seven to six victory. You know, that’s what’s great about baseball. You just have to hit one ball. One time and you’re done with work for the day and everyone thinks you’re a hero.

[00:29:27] Wish my job was that easy. I’m over here knocking jokes outta the park all so long and no fanfare. I’ll be right back at it again tomorrow. Like some kind of slave. Someone ought to suggest that Stacking Benjamin start an annual award ceremony. Doesn’t have to be anything big, you know, like the Emmys, I’m not asking for much.

[00:29:46] Just a little something to recognize me for my talents, I suggested myself, I would just be tacky. But back to the Red Sox, that April 26th victory was one of many in a season that led them to win the World Series. That year, they went on to win three more World Series titles before suffering a grueling 86 year streak of sucking water right out of the back bay.

[00:30:10] I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to lose that much. Glad I win all the time. Today’s totally related trivia question is. What’s the total payroll for the Boston Red Sox for the 2024 season? You, like you, you saw that question coming, right? With all that lead up that I had, he froze. I, I pretty much just gave it away in the first thousand words.

[00:30:36] I’ll be back right after I clear off a shelf in the basement for trophies.

[00:30:41] Joe: You know? Just in

[00:30:42] Doug: case.

[00:30:42] Joe: Just in case. Alright. Uh, Dana, I know you’re Holy cow. A big Boston and Red Sox fan. Have you, have you gone to see your Arizona Diamondbacks play?

[00:30:51] Dana: I have, but long ago when I first moved here, so that was probably 20 years ago.

[00:30:56] ?: Oh wow. Yeah.

[00:30:57] Joe: So, yeah, it’s been

[00:30:58] Dana: been a while. And we had a, right when I moved here, I think we were, I can’t remember if we won the World Series that year, but it was right around that time. Yeah.

[00:31:05] Joe: You had a great team, Kurt Schilling and, uh, Randy. Randy Johnson. Yep. In fact, I was watching, I was on TikTok today.

[00:31:14] I was, I was watching a video with Randy Johnson talking about how he was in how many All Star games, how many World Series he was in, all these things. He’s known for one event, Doug, he’s known for one thing, killing the seagull, killing a bird. Yeah. He threw a pitch at the same time that a bird was flying across and it hit the bird and killed it, and it was horrible.

[00:31:34] Look at Paula’s face. It was horrible. It was, this guy had an amazing, amazing, uh, career and he’s known for one thing. Seriously, though, if

[00:31:42] Doug: you’ve ever doubted whether or not fate is a real thing in the universe. That will convince you because what are the odds? Yeah. Of a 97 mile an hour fastball and a seagull choosing to fly in front at that moment.

[00:31:55] It was a horrible moment. It, it was like a zen-like, kind of, anyway,

[00:31:59] Joe: nearly as horrible as the guest then I think Dana’s about to give us, oh

[00:32:02] Dana: my God. I, I’m like, I’m trying to

[00:32:04] Doug: buy you time.

[00:32:05] Dana: How many people does it include? The coach, the manager? What’s the highest paid player? Like, I don’t Oh my. So all these questions running through my head, but I just have to throw something out there.

[00:32:15] So I’ll throw out, I’ll throw out 352 million.

[00:32:22] Joe: 352 million.

[00:32:24] Dana: Yep.

[00:32:25] Joe: Mr. Berger, does that sound high to you? Or low

[00:32:28] Rob: P rose? Um, so like Dana, I have absolutely no clue, but do I get an over under? Is that my response? Well, I think it’s, I think that’s high. Well, then you gotta pick a number that’s lower. Then she’s already set a number in my head that I can’t get away from.

[00:32:45] But I’ll say, uh, I’ll just round it off and say 300 million. 300

[00:32:49] Joe: million Paula pant.

[00:32:51] Rob: You’ve

[00:32:51] Joe: got the last word.

[00:32:53] Paula: Well, I guess I’ll take the under for 299,999,999. Like $1 of chance. Not

[00:33:01] Joe: $1. I think you got exactly $1 or did you do 99 cents? Yeah. Right. Thank you. I did do

[00:33:07] Paula: 99 cents. So you, you do have a dollar.

[00:33:10] You got a dollar,

[00:33:11] Joe: Rob. And that’s, that’s the way the game is played. Alright, we got our guesses locked in. We’ll be right back to see who’s gonna win this thing. Dana, you opened this up with Doug. I don’t remember the number. What’s, what’s Dana’s number? 3 52. $352 million. So seeing what Rob and Paula did afterwards, how you feeling?

[00:33:31] Dana: You know, I feel okay with it. I just, you know, I don’t know what their highest played player is, but if I’m including managers, coaches, I don’t know. I

[00:33:39] Doug: could be close. I like how she keeps going back to that. Dana, I’m gonna tell you something right now. Coaches and the popcorn, they’re rounding errors on That’s

[00:33:48] ?: right.

[00:33:49] That’s right.

[00:33:50] Doug: On the people that are really making up the bulk of this salary. So I don’t think I’d worry about them still. She

[00:33:56] Joe: got some room. Rob. Uh, you feel you, you might feel a little suffocated with your 300 million number.

[00:34:02] Rob: I have zero confidence in my guess zero. I would’ve less than that if it were possible.

[00:34:07] And that might be because of Paula

[00:34:08] Joe: Pant,

[00:34:09] Rob: which, yeah. Yes. She, she undercut me. It, so it’s, it’s what happened,

[00:34:13] Paula: Paula, are you

[00:34:14] Joe: about to make this a threeway tie?

[00:34:15] Paula: Hi. Historically, whenever I take either the over or the under, I guess wrong, it’s exactly the

[00:34:22] Joe: opposite.

[00:34:23] Paula: You know, you would probabilistically, you would think that I would guess wrong 50% of the time, but historically, I guess wrong, 99% of the time.

[00:34:31] I don’t know, it’s, the laws of probability are suspended, right? So it’s like, it’s like

[00:34:35] Joe: Paula finds a way to hit a seagull with every guest. Yeah,

[00:34:42] it’s incredible. But let’s see if at 299, 99, if she gets it, if Rob maybe squeezes in there between three 50 and 300, or if it’s over 350 million, uh, 3 52. Who? Who’s gonna win this thing?

[00:35:00] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m mustard only, Fenway Frank lover and pesky pole dancer. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Wait, that. That came out wrong. Yeah. Yeah, it might’ve. Okay. The very first home run scored at Fenway Park was hit by Red Sox first baseman, Hugh Bradley, the visiting team, the Philadelphia Athletics, were so embarrassed by their loss.

[00:35:22] They moved to Kansas City, which didn’t go that well for ’em either, and they just kept on running West to their permanent home. Oakland, they’re never gonna leave there. They’ll be in Oakland forever. Their fans love ’em. I think. I think Doug, they’re, uh, they’re about to leave Oakland as well. Impossible.

[00:35:36] It’ll ever happen. Today’s trivia question is, what is the total payroll for the 2024 Boston Red Sox? The answer, well, Sox fans would argue that no budget is high enough for their beloved franchise. The total 2024 season budget is, I’m not gonna tell you that, that easily, but what I will tell you is it’s 172 million and some change less than Dana guessed, and a 120 million less than what Rob guessed, and a mere 119 million less than what Paul guessed.

[00:36:07] Because the correct answer is $180,260,347 and 64 cents. That is a hell of a lot of cracker jacks, which means Paula is our winner. Yay. That never happens. I don’t have a speech prepared. Hey, bonus question everybody. Rob, here’s a chance to redeem yourself. How many more dollars is that than the Stacking Benjamins annual budget?

[00:36:32] A lot. Yeah. If you take our $5 Yeah. And you add it to theirs. Anyway,

[00:36:37] Joe: yeah. We’re, we’re, we’re right in there. And

[00:36:39] Doug: now

[00:36:39] Joe: to the second half of this Potpourri podcast. Well actually, hold on. Let’s pump the brakes, Doug, because we haven’t found out what these wonderful people are doing. Oh yeah. There’s that.

[00:36:47] Where they, where they live. Paula, what’s coming up on Afford Anything

[00:36:50] Paula: On the Afford Anything podcast, we are airing episode 500. Episode 500 is a two part episode, episode 500, part one, and part two. In part one, I interview Brad Barrett, the host of the Choose Fi podcast. So wait is 500, 501,

[00:37:04] Doug: no, no. 501 comes up.

[00:37:05] Oh, you’re messing with the laws of math and the universe. You can’t do that.

[00:37:13] Paula: I think my head hurts. Think of it as 500 A and 500 B. Uh, so yeah, so it’s a two-parter, but Brad Barrett, uh, so we recorded this live at a comedy club in front of a live audience in Brooklyn. Brad Barrett came all the way up to New York City from Richmond, Virginia to be part of this show. And so I interview him about what has changed in the world of financial independence, but also.

[00:37:38] Equally as important. What has not changed? Uh, what has stayed the same? What’s been consistent and constant.

[00:37:44] Joe: Isn’t it super fun doing live episodes?

[00:37:46] Paula: It is, it is. Yeah. The, the energy from the crowd is infectious.

[00:37:51] Doug: Absolutely. Super. And nothing can go wrong and nothing will go wrong.

[00:37:57] Paula: Oh God.

[00:37:57] Doug: It’s on horribly wrong.

[00:38:00] Joe: We’ll link

[00:38:00] Paula: to episode 500.

[00:38:01] Joe: Congratulations, Paula.

[00:38:02] Paula: Thank you. And congratulations to you on episode 1500. Thank you. Thanks. It

[00:38:07] Joe: is, uh, milestone. It’s weird. It’s milestone month here. Yeah. Um, uh, Mr. Berger, thanks for joining us again, man. Speaking of you. We didn’t have an audience. We were kinda sheltered last time you were on.

[00:38:17] We, but we, we recorded a podcast live at FinCon last time you were on, but what

[00:38:22] Rob: do you got coming up on YouTube? So, I’m gonna be returning back to live shows. I, I haven’t done one in a while ’cause of my, I’ve had this blower back issue. Oh no. But, uh, May 6th, I’ll be back with a live show that I do every other week and answer questions from folks.

[00:38:35] It’s a lot of fun and a lot of content around the big three questions for retirees, right? How much can I spend without, you know, each year without going broke in retirement? That’s a big one. How do I invest my money in retirement? So a lot of content around that. And then another one, uh, is how in the world do you take all this money you’ve saved and actually turn it into a paycheck?

[00:38:55] That’s really a lot of our content around those three sort of big topics. So we got a lot of that coming up. In the next few weeks as well.

[00:39:01] Joe: Awesome. And that’s it. Uh, I’m guessing youtube.com/rob Berger. If you

[00:39:05] Rob: just search Rob Berger, you’ll find me. I don’t, I guess it is Rob Berger. Yeah, I think, I think that’s right.

[00:39:10] I should, I should know that, shouldn’t I? I think it is. That’s good marketing there, Rob. All that’ll happen as long as I don’t play too much speed chess. That’s right. You could be live watching Rob play speed chess. Oh, no, that’s a big thing. Don’t, don’t you make fun of that, Joe. Do not make fun of that.

[00:39:24] I’m, I’m not making fun of it. That’s a big thing on Yes. Twitch YouTube live speed chess. It is the,

[00:39:32] Joe: well, as a guy who, as a guy who likes board games, and I’ve watched people play board games live, I think, what the hell am I doing? I’m, I’m too lazy to play board games myself. I’m watching other people play board games.

[00:39:43] Rob: Just like how you work out. You just watch videos of people working out.

[00:39:46] Joe: Thanks. It feels great. Cut out the middleman. Dana, thanks for joining us again. Great

[00:39:51] Dana: to be

[00:39:51] Joe: here. What’s coming up is sensible money. I know last time you were here, you had a webinar coming up. You got any big stuff happening?

[00:39:58] Dana: We do. We always have webinars coming up.

[00:40:00] And so our next one is actually on the role of annuities in retirement planning. So we do live webinars about every eight weeks. This one’s gonna be on Thursday, June the 13th. And on one of my previous webinars, someone put in the comments, how come you never talk about annuities? And I thought, aha. Ah, I’ll do a webinar on that.

[00:40:20] So with interest rates higher, it’s changed the dynamics. And we are a fee only firm. We don’t sell annuities. We don’t, we aren’t compensated by annuities in any way, shape, or form. So I feel like we can present a very objective way of looking at them. When do they fit? When would you use them? When would you not use them?

[00:40:36] Joe: Wait a minute, you’re not gonna talk about getting, getting some of the upside and none of the downside of the stock market while you participate and how great that is.

[00:40:44] Dana: We are gonna talk about that in the What to Watch out for in annuity. Sales pitches part.

[00:40:50] Joe: Right. Just how slimy can this get? Yeah, that’s good.

[00:40:54] And we’ll link to, and, and I’m sure you’ll have that up at Sensible Money where people can find out more.

[00:40:59] Dana: It’s, it’s in the bottom left of our homepage. You can see, you know, register for the webinar. And our YouTube is YouTube at Sensible Money. So I do know our YouTube handle. At least

[00:41:10] Joe: that’s ex.

[00:41:11] Excellent. Well, Dana, Rob, Paula, thanks for hanging out with us Doug. I think we finished this segment. What’s up next, Joe? Let’s head to the second half

[00:41:19] Doug: of this pop podcast with you and Met Pro’s, health and wellness expert Angelo Poland.

[00:41:29] Joe: Well, you know, spring, depending on where you’re listening to this is either right around the corner or it’s arrived when Angelo Polley comes back in the second quarter to talk about health and fitness. How have you been my friend?

[00:41:41] Angelo: I’ve been fantastic, Joe. Great to see you.

[00:41:44] Joe: Good to see you. Haven’t seen you since January and my How time flies.

[00:41:48] It feels like it. We like we just recorded the last session.

[00:41:51] Angelo: It does, it does.

[00:41:54] Joe: Well, let’s dive into you guys at Met Pro Men and ladies at Met Pro have really dug into the data. You’ve got a bunch of, obviously you’re collecting data all the time. Tell me about this project that you did first, let’s start off there.

[00:42:09] Angelo: One of the neat things that we have at Met Pro is a ton of what I deem as quality data. When I say quality data, I’m not referring to, you know, digital files. What I’m referring to is actionable real data because it’s from real people. A lot of times when you see different like studies that are trying to quantify the efficacy of a certain modality, you have such trouble getting the truth because of self-reported data that may be skew or biases or different interests.

[00:42:49] When we’ve had now tens of thousands of people come through our program and they are now admittedly, they’re financially incentivized to follow through with the program, they are motivated by a coach and a community to follow through the program. What does that mean? So as we’re looking at the data, what we’ve done is we’ve tried to quantify it against the most well researched, proven modalities out there.

[00:43:18] So we’ve done a research, kind of a, like a white paper that has chronicled highlights the most pertinent takeaways from understanding the effects of calorie restriction, carbohydrate restriction. Exercise and nutritional periodization. And those are kind of the, the four grandfather techniques people think about if, especially professionals in the field think about when it’s time to work on health and fitness, wellness, nutrition, et cetera.

[00:43:52] Joe: You guys just looked at this and you looked at these drivers to see which one really was a stronger driver of return on your investment.

[00:44:01] Angelo: Exactly. And you would put it just like that, Joe, the best return on investment. I love it. Ninja. Ninja, right here. That’s it. So I get asked and even when we did, um, you know, questions from some of your community a few months ago.

[00:44:18] People wanna know how does it work? What are the most relevant modalities? And so what we strive to do is basically teach the real science and make it simple. Because the goal out there is when you’re hearing that there is this new approach just discovered, and you’re hearing someone say, I eat donuts every day, but I can lose weight because of this.

[00:44:41] One thing we’ve discovered that is the marketing team that has put together that little diddy, not the research department. Damn it. Damn it. So what I’m trying to do is, though this is a 35 page white paper, what I’m trying to do is provide an overview to our clients and then to your audience and anyone who’s interested.

[00:45:07] Of pros and cons and relevancy of different tactics people take to get healthy. And of course you want met Pro. 83% of clients that reach out to us for some fitness goal have weight loss as a goal. So that is somewhat through the vantage point of sustained weight loss and metabolism. But basically what’s out there and the answer is.

[00:45:29] When you look at hundreds, even thousands of peer reviewed research papers, there are essentially four buckets now within each bucket. We could talk for hours in different branches, but to to encapsulate. Here’s essentially what you have calories, carbohydrates, exercise, and periodization. So let me, let me do this, Joe.

[00:45:52] Let me just read you just two or three sentences on each category and then tell me if anything strikes you as interesting or surprising. And

[00:46:00] Joe: before we get to that, so here’s,

[00:46:01] Angelo: here’s what we have. Well, hold on.

[00:46:02] Joe: Angela, before we do that, what does periodization mean? ’cause I don’t know what that, I don’t know what that even means.

[00:46:09] I know what the other three mean, but not periodization.

[00:46:11] Angelo: So periodization means manipulating degree. Intensity and timing. So we, we often refer to that with training periodization. Periods of high intensity training, periods of recovery, high volume training. Fasting would be under

[00:46:25] Joe: there then too fat.

[00:46:26] Angelo: Oh yeah, absolutely.

[00:46:27] So from a nutritional standpoint, fasting would fall into that category. The way that we find it’s most relevant is cyclical nutrition. And that doesn’t necessarily have to be as extreme as fasting, but for example, periods of restriction. For fat loss, followed by periods of increased fueling for enhanced athletic performance and metabolic revving to refresh that metabolic rate, that would be nutritional periodization.

[00:46:56] Joe: Got it. Okay. So do that then. So you’re gonna give me a couple sentences and we’ll see what, uh, what sticks out.

[00:47:03] Angelo: So here’s pros and cons that this is the bulk of the research. Now, grant, granted, we’re interpreting it, so there’s your disclaimer, but this is real research that’s been done in our conclusions in the trenches.

[00:47:14] Looking at this research, what we have realized is calorie restriction, here’s the benefit. It can be introduced in a way that offers the dieter flexibility. That’s one of the, the principle attributes of calorie restriction is it’s flexible. Most research agrees that total energy restriction is more influential than the method of restriction itself.

[00:47:42] However, not all methods of calorie restriction optimally support exercise, which is a component proven in the research, critical for weight maintenance. Additionally, not all methods of calorie restriction produce equal maintenance of fat-free mass, equal maintenance of muscle, all methods of calorie restriction if sustained result in metabolic adaptation and metabolic adaptation means your body getting used to less calories.

[00:48:19] So there’s always a catch.

[00:48:21] Joe: Okay, two. Two things. Two things. The first one is, I think what I’m hearing there is all calories are not created equal. Number one, that is true because some calories that you consume, it sounded like you said, will s support exercise better than others,

[00:48:39] Angelo: correct?

[00:48:40] Joe: Yes. So maybe means I can’t drink a beer and then go run a mile.

[00:48:46] Angelo: You got it. Unfortunately.

[00:48:49] Joe: Again, one star, not what I want to hear, Angelo. But that’s number one. And then number two is obviously, and what you emphasize there at the end is that no matter what we try to restrict, if we try to restrict one of the caloric levers for a long period of time, that our body gets used to it.

[00:49:08] Angelo: Absolutely, yes. So what this research is saying is basically overall, it’s telling us that calorie restriction is still. The gold standard for weight loss, but it is only a component. It’s not all of it, and it’s not All forms of calorie restriction are not created equal. There has to be a little bit of intelligence through its implementation.

[00:49:35] We have to implement it in such a way that we’re still able to have energy for exercise. And here’s the critical piece, that it does not dip into a scenario where the restriction is so severe that you get a backlash of metabolic adaption. In other words, your metabolism slowing in acclimation to it. So there’s a little bit of wiggle room with how you wanna implement it.

[00:50:07] Now what we do at Met Pro is a multidisciplinary approach where we use calorie restriction, but we do so in partnership with all three other modalities. So I’ll explain kind of that at the end. The next one is carbohydrate restriction. And this is probably one of the most frequently asked questions I get.

[00:50:30] Is carb restriction better or is calorie restriction better? And the answer is, there are pros and cons to both. So here’s essentially an overview of hundreds, really thousands of research papers when it comes to carbohydrate restriction. Carbohydrate restriction is less flexible than calorie restriction with most research showing unremarkable results when only minor carbohydrate restriction is applied.

[00:51:01] In other words, carbohydrate restriction can work, but if you do it just a little bit, you usually don’t see a whole lot of action. Carbohydrate restriction of significant magnitude has been shown to deliver greater total body weight loss than calorie restriction alone. In many research papers, however, there’s a big asterisk.

[00:51:26] Much of this can be accounted for by changes in water balance. So when you cut carbs, you also dump a bunch of water. Researchers are divided. That has been a theme in this research. Researchers are divided on the degree of benefits of carbohydrate restriction beyond that of calorie restriction. However, some studies have demonstrated greater appetite control along with greater total body weight loss, and I have observed both of those things at different times in our clients and carbohydrate restriction.

[00:51:58] And here’s the, here’s the kicker. Carbohydrate restriction of significant magnitude can adversely affect athletic performance. Oh, now typically, this isn’t minor carbohydrate restriction. You have to really be full blown here to experience this, but it can be fairly crippling. In fact, they biopsy muscles of endurance trained athletes pre and post workout when they’re participating in extremely low carbohydrate diets.

[00:52:26] And the, the results were shocking at how poor their glycogen replenishment levels and their muscles were. So it absolutely can impair performance and carbohydrate restriction. Results in greater carb sensitivity. And that doesn’t need to be a permanent sensitivity, but it does result in greater carb sensitivity.

[00:52:48] So you have a little bit of a glass cannon approach with carb restriction. It can be potent, but there’s a little bit more, um, let’s see, wiggle room, let’s say, or opportunity for backfiring if it’s mismanaged. So that’s where selecting the degree, how much are we gonna lean into carbohydrate control versus calorie restriction is really a critical question to answer.

[00:53:18] And what we have found with our clients is it is rarely all one or the other. Hmm. However, we do find scenarios whereby leaning a little more into one or the other produces a better outcome. Finally we get to not finally, this is number three of four. We get to exercise well. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. And

[00:53:42] Joe: even before we get there, Angelo, I mean, I’m just thinking as I listen to this, that, uh, I didn’t realize how fragile from what you just said, how fragile the carbohydrate approach really, truly can be.

[00:53:52] And man, if I’m trying to do that next half marathon, like, uh, buyer beware, if you’re gonna correct, cut your carb. So really look at what you are training for. If you’re a serious athlete, you know, the other levers are probably gonna give you higher. And I love the term you used, efficacy. Efficacy is my favorite training term of all.

[00:54:10] Just, uh, what really, really matters. Uh, just a wonderful, wonderful term. The other thing about carbohydrates, you know, when you talked about really drastically cutting carbohydrates can create more sensitivity, are you talking about then if I reintroduce a carbon in my system, it can wreak havoc much, much more than if I just take a moderated approach?

[00:54:33] Angelo: Absolutely. So that’s one of the first conversations we have with our clients. If they have been doing low carb dieting, so for example, somebody who’s been cutting carbs can go away for a weekend with the guys or even a night out with the girls.

[00:54:47] Joe: Mm-Hmm.

[00:54:48] Angelo: And come back the next morning, five pounds heavier.

[00:54:52] Joe: Yeah,

[00:54:53] Angelo: and they did not consume 10,500 calories.

[00:54:57] Joe: They had an extra biscuit at dinner,

[00:54:59] Angelo: right? They had a couple biscuits, a glass of wine, and they’re five pounds heavier the next day. Mm-Hmm. That is the carbohydrate cost, not the calorie cost. If you have someone who is eating carbs, but cutting calories, that has a blowout weekend, they could come back a pound or two heavier, but it is unlikely they’re gonna come back with, see that huge spike on the scale.

[00:55:23] Now, not to get too technical here, but there’s a mechanic behind that. Each gram of glucose or glycogen stored in the muscle or liver is buffered with three grams of water. So when you deplete your glycogen, that’s where the rapid weight loss drop off comes from because you’re also. Dehydrating your muscles to a degree.

[00:55:45] And when you replenish glycogen after a deficit, then you’re also rehydrating muscles. And that’s why all of a sudden the scale is, is sending you obscenities the next morning. That wasn’t necessarily body fat shifts to that magnitude that took place. That’s water fluctuations. And then there is a third component to that, and that is the body has a mechanic.

[00:56:08] Where when it you have signaled to it decreases in carbohydrate intake. It’ll actually hormonally put your body in a situation where it prioritizes glucose uptake. Um, that’s a mechanic that some of a sports nutritionist will take advantage of. For athletes who are carb loading will sometimes actually decrease their carbs a few days out from race so that way they’re sensitive.

[00:56:30] When we add carbs, price, bam, race, bam, bam. Yeah. So there’s just a lot more going on and it’s not a matter of good or bad, it’s a matter of intention. You need to apply these principles and these modalities in intentionally if you wanna get the greatest result out of them. This is fun.

[00:56:50] Joe: This is, this is, this is absolutely great.

[00:56:53] So next is, is our timing

[00:56:56] Angelo: right? Exercise first. Exercise first. Okay. Oh yeah,

[00:56:59] Joe: exercise. And then our timing.

[00:57:00] Angelo: And then our timing. Yep. So exercise, and I’m just reading this from our, this is our overview and a 35 page snippet. Snippet, right? Write exercise has been identified as a crucial part of weight loss, maintenance, weight loss, maintenance.

[00:57:17] We’re gonna come back to that and why that’s so critical. A large analysis of many studies found exercise present in 88% of weight loss studies deemed successful. Any research, any studies that was classified as that this was a successful weight loss effort. Exercise was present in 88% of them. Wow. So you are trying to be of the successful endeavors, you’ll have a 12% chance if exercise isn’t part of that, isn’t part of that.

[00:57:50] Research has shown there is a link between preserving lean muscle mass and combating metabolic adaptation. Aerobic exercise contributes to weight loss through increased energy expenditure. While resistance training preserves or builds lean mass and improves body composition. Most people understand that hybrid training may play a role in time efficient training strategies and recent studies suggest results can be optimized by considering body type and goals.

[00:58:23] Exercise increases total energy expenditure. Now I’m gonna say this next line twice ’cause this is very relevant Exercise increases total energy expenditure and reduces the degree of dietary restriction required for weight loss. While exercise may not eliminate metabolic adaptation, it will reduce its severity.

[00:58:49] Why should we care if exercise reduces the amount of restriction? Because most people, let me give you the real world in the trenches versions of working with Johnny last week is, Hey Johnny, did you get your 30 minutes of exercise today? And he is like, yeah, it burned 175 calories. I’d rather just skip my apple while it certainly seems, yeah, you know, I’m already miserable.

[00:59:15] I would just look, I’ll just eat a, an apple less. Let me skip the exercise. This research, this body of research, actually surfaces a brilliant argument for why the exercise component is critical. If you exercise, and even if it’s only a marginal increase in your total daily calorie burn, what it’s doing is it’s allowing the threshold, and I’m just picking random, ridiculous numbers, but let’s just say I lose weight gradually at 2000 calories a day.

[00:59:53] With exercise, I lose weight gradually at 2150. Why does that matter to me? Because the enemy of weight loss, sustainable weight loss is plateaus induced by metabolic drift, adaptive thermogenesis, or a broader term for all of it, which is called metabolic adaptation. Metabolic adaption, and that is the body’s absolute ability to acclimate, to lower intake, and plateau your weight loss to prioritize.

[01:00:32] Surviving, and this is not something listeners and friends, and I shout this out from the rooftops, that is going to be solved with a magic bullet, a pill, or a medical breakthrough. And here’s why. That adaptive response is not a single hormone. It is a multitude of hormones in the body, including insulin, ghrelin, leptin, all your cellular mechanics are involved.

[01:01:00] Even the brainstem and the hypothalamus, and basically every function and system in your body acclimate. It’s not one. Smoking gun, it’s death by a thousand cuts. It’s every system in your body just slightly tuning to be a little more efficient, to require less fuel that keeps you alive, which is why that survival mechanic is so persistent and is so frustrating when you’re trying to lose weight.

[01:01:33] It does its job. So when you eat less, your body will acclimate to that. And that’s why we encourage people to have times of scheduled upregulating, increased fueling, increased activity, and step with increased fueling. All of the research now on exercise is indicating, ah, that’s why it’s so relevant with long-term success because it’s an enabling someone.

[01:02:01] It’s not just about, oh, I burned extra calories. It’s enabling someone to lose weight without having to trigger such an extreme metabolic adaption response because they had to basically cut so much out of their diet to trigger that. That’s what makes exercise so potent in step with all the other benefits that are well documented.

[01:02:25] Every nose, everyone knows benefits of lean mass, vitality, strength, use, performance, all of that stuff comes along with exercise. So exercise is huge, and yes, I know this isn’t what everyone wants to hear, but if you want your health and fitness goals to last, make sure that some level of exercise is present.

[01:02:47] Joe: But I think there’s even a step further. I’m, I’m gonna take everybody back to January 1st. We had a guy named Eric Alman on the show. People can go back and listen to this episode, but he talked about this idea, Angelo, of cowboy fencing off times to make sure that you do the important things. Yeah. And fencing off the times that, because, you know, for me, exercises if, if I don’t have a fenced off Angelo, it’s the first thing to go.

[01:03:09] I’m like, you know what? I’ll do that later. And then later comes and guess who doesn’t do it at eight o’clock at night when I said I was going to, ’cause I’m tired and I make dumb decisions at eight o’clock at night. So fence that up. But the second thing is. Even though you’re gonna be very serious about that fencing and you’re going to exercise, it sounds like what you’re also telling me is if an outsider comes in and looks at my exercise routine, it might look a little playful because it sounds like different day-to-day.

[01:03:38] Just like the calorie thing is gonna be better than just, I’m gonna go run three miles every morning or walk five miles, whatever the thing may be. Varying that up because of the body maintaining. Is that true?

[01:03:50] Angelo: There is some truth to that, but the take home message Joe, is gonna be consistency when it comes to exercise Trump soul.

[01:03:59] Do it. Consistency is the number one, uh, the number one goal, and that’s what has been born out. In all of the research, find something that you’ll do. The rea and i, i, I don’t have the exact number on lock, but there’s research that indicates every hour after you wake up, your odds of exercising decrease by a percent.

[01:04:21] And everyone listening is nodding their head. Yep, that’s right. Yeah, that’s right for me. And if you can’t exercise early in the day because of your schedule, what we tell our clients to do is anchor, anchor your exercise to something in your schedule. That you are not gonna miss. For, for some people that’s their work schedule.

[01:04:41] You know, you do it right on your way home from work. For some people it’s picking up or dropping off Johnny to school or whatever the case may be. If you can anchor it to something that you’re not gonna miss, you’re gonna be more likely to be consistent with it. And I am constantly, this may be surprising to some, you know, because I train pro athletes and elite and Olympic competitors, and, but believe it or not, Joe, my average client, I’m trying to get them to tone back the intensity or the complexity of their exercise efforts in favor of regularity, because I can always add, so somebody out of the gate, I’m, I’m not exercising regularly, but I want to do it all.

[01:05:24] So I’m gonna go to the gym for an hour a day. I’m like, okay, today you’re doing nothing. And what you’re telling me is tomorrow. You’re gonna take two hours outta your day so you can drive to the gym, exercise for an hour, clean up, drive back home, and all of a sudden this is gonna happen. How about this?

[01:05:42] How about you give me 10 to 12 minutes at home in your living room before you start your day, five days a week? And once you accomplish that, then we’ll talk about what you’re gonna do with 20 minutes.

[01:05:55] Joe: It’s funny, Angela, going back to Eric Kalman at the beginning of the year for people that didn’t hear this interview, he took a year where he tried to focus and he was gonna focus for two hours a day, and he said the frustrating thing was he decided to ramp into it and do it in December, the year before, you know, just to get going.

[01:06:12] He’s like, and I did it for not two hours, I did it for 18 minutes. By the way, it wasn’t 18 minutes a day, it was 18 minutes all month.

[01:06:23] Angelo: Yep. Sounds about right. Yep. So,

[01:06:27] Joe: so I’m totally with you. I love the quote from coach, uh, Rick Pitino. He had this advice somewhere. He said, I like exercising before my brain wakes up and knows what the hell I’m doing.

[01:06:38] He’s like, if I’m, if I’m halfway through my workout and my brain finally wakes up, so that’s why I like five and six o’clock in the morning. Don’t love those hours, but I try to do it before. I’ll tell you something

[01:06:48] Angelo: that’ll shock you. I’ll tell you something that’ll shock you. So we scraped the data. This is real data with real clients that we’ve worked with.

[01:06:57] Believe it or not, what we found is that, well, okay, this part is very believable. Clients who exercise three to four days a week lost 34% more weight while following their Met Pro prioritization meal plan. Okay, so that makes sense. Obviously, what may shock you is that the data we scraped, unfortunately we weren’t able to categorize just the nature of how our system was, the exact modality of exercise they did.

[01:07:29] So they asked me, Angela, do you still want this data? I said, well, it’s not what I really want, and it’s not the, I’m not gonna get what I need. I said, yeah, gimme the data anyway, and when I got it, I was shocked. Because here’s what that means. Regardless of what exercise those clients were doing, you did, they lost 34% more weights.

[01:07:52] What does that tell you? So you want to talk about, you know, I got a client right now we’re training for Kona. We have NFL players nerd out on the oom teeth degree of human performance. But for the average person who comes to me and is like, which way should I do upright dumbbell rose, or should I do rear flies?

[01:08:09] I. Start with just doing. Once you’re doing and you’re consistent, it’s part of your regular routine, then we’ll add to it. And that’s why our coaches, the first thing they’re gonna talk with you about is routine foundation. Routine foundation. We can always build, we gotta make space for it. So that way your health and prioritizing your wellness is part of your daily routine first.

[01:08:33] And once that’s there, then we can build on it.

[01:08:38] Joe: That’s your foundation. So is your foundation built on certain times certain? Let’s talk modality before you wrap it up here.

[01:08:46] Angelo: That’s gonna be individual to the person. ’cause we all have different lifestyles and we all have different body types and goals. So it’s, we’re gonna look at somebody’s fitness history and personal culture that they already have going and we’re gonna help figure out what the least painful adjustments we can make that will have the greatest return on investment.

[01:09:09] If somebody has the ability to start a routine where it’s gonna be some resistance training, some aerobic activity, and spread it between five days a week, yes, we’re gonna start right out of the gate there. If somebody is significantly overweight and has a significant amount of body fat to lose, what we may do is say, okay, based on limited time available, we are going to focus aerobic activity until you have lost.

[01:09:38] Five to 6% of your body weight and then we’re going to substitute one cardio day for resistance day. Hmm. But see there, there’s no rules. There may be someone who is in good enough health and good enough shape to be able to do hybrid training where we can get two for the price of one in the ti, same time they have available.

[01:09:57] So that’s the benefits of actually working with a coach, having an expert that’s in real time, having these conversations with you and directing you towards the most efficient approach. By and large, don’t be an extremist balanced. Try and include some resistance training, some aerobic training, and that would be my somewhat canned response.

[01:10:19] If somebody was asking me, where should I start without having their personal details.

[01:10:24] Joe: Well, I know you guys are all about data. We talked about this in January. Jesse, my met Pro coach, encouraged me to look at more data. I told her that I probably wouldn’t, so she put it right in front of me and dammit, I looked at it and what I found was I could start looking at those triggers myself.

[01:10:40] So because of our long history with MET Pro, I. If you go to met pro.co/sb, you can get your own metabolic profile. Look at where that starting point is for you to go into what Angelo’s been saying and have a complimentary consultation to talk about that and what kind of program they would set up for you or that you may end up doing on your own.

[01:11:04] But either way, I think it’s a great benefit you guys offer our stackers, Angelo, to get people moving here. Everybody stopped in January doing their New Year’s resolutions, and if you’re one of those people and now it’s April and you still haven’t done it, I think it’s probably time. Just get the data in front of you.

[01:11:20] So go to met pro.co/sb and. Get your free metabolic assessment and begin, uh, diving in there, Angelo. Thanks for sharing that with us. Thanks,

[01:11:34] Angelo: Joe. That was fun.

[01:11:35] Joe: Well, and I think there’s some big takeaways, all these things we hear in on social media, right? I mean, let’s kind of wrap this up a little bit. All the stuff we hear works to some degree, right?

[01:11:44] Everything you said is Yeah. Cutting carbs works. Yeah. Cutting calories works. Yeah. Working out works. But these levers are gonna do different things and man, they work massively better if you integrate them together.

[01:11:55] Angelo: Uh, you know, and that’s why people, you know, they ask me, well, what do you, you have a fitness and nutrition program?

[01:12:02] And you know, sometimes we refer to it that way. But I, I try and explain, no, this is really an education. Because what we try to do is empower our, our clients, our listeners, to know what questions to ask, and to identify what levers are relevant to them. You can Google, how do I lose weight, how do I get in better shape?

[01:12:24] And there’s literally hundreds of thousands of opinions out there on the internet. And here’s the tough part. It’s not that 99% of them are wrong and one guy’s telling the truth. No, no, no. There’s every approach has worked for someone at some point. But if there’s one thing the data has made crystal clear is that everyone’s body is going to respond a little bit different.

[01:12:46] So next steps. What we need to change with someone’s diet, how many grams of carbs and proteins and fats, and how we’re gonna reallocate them need to be progressive and individual to the person if they want an optimal experience. And once you’re in it, it’s not rocket science, it is knowable.

[01:13:11] Doug: Hey everybody, welcome to the back porch. Uh, through the miracle of time travel, finding the wormhole. I’ve brought in a couple. That sounds gross. Uh, I, I found them. I pulled in. Joe and og. We’re gonna, we’re gonna have a right proper back porch. Joe. Let’s, we got a ton of things to cover. Let’s talk about, uh, just my, my

[01:13:35] OG: own business and not get roped into this little circus.

[01:13:39] Just sitting here in the corner with a glass of bourbon and a cigar. It got

[01:13:42] Doug: sucked in through the wormhole. It’s getting worse.

[01:13:45] OG: Promises. Promises.

[01:13:47] Joe: Oh geez. Like I managed to avoid this entire episode.

[01:13:50] OG: I know I’ve avoided a lot of stuff lately if anybody’s noticed. Conveniently absent,

[01:13:57] Doug: but we got ’em now. We got ’em.

[01:13:58] Now let’s talk about, we got a big thing coming up that I know you want to talk about, Joe, but before we get to that, how about we talk about, uh, some meetups we have coming up in a bunch of cities. Boy, are your arms gonna be tired?

[01:14:11] OG: Things I’m not invited to again. I’ll take, I’ll take things I’m not invited to for 200.

[01:14:15] Alex

[01:14:15] Joe: Not, not, you’re not playing that card. Not on this one. Not at all. We are headed to Cleveland. Woohoo. ’cause Cleveland rocks. We, we still don’t have a home for Cleveland. We will have it though. Uh, next week is next. Does anybody have a home

[01:14:30] OG: in

[01:14:30] Joe: Cleveland? My pa, my, my sister. Perfect. Yeah. Let’s just go to, let’s go to your sister’s

[01:14:35] Doug: house, man.

[01:14:36] Joe: That’s what we should do. Yeah, but that’s on, that would be epic. That’s like

[01:14:39] Doug: in the middle

[01:14:40] Joe: of May, right? It is. May 14th in Cleveland. Boy, I sound great. May 14th

[01:14:44] OG: in knock, knock in Cleveland. Hey sis. Good news. I’m here. Better news. So are these 30 other people

[01:14:54] Joe: and one of them brought a six pack. I got good news and bad news, Nikki.

[01:14:58] The bad news is you’re hosting. The good news is these are fun stackers that are coming out to us. Where’s the cake? Yes, we do have a spot in Detroit. We are going to be at Green Path, uh, which is where we’ve held events in Detroit. If you’ve been to our events in Detroit in the past, we’ll be at Green Path, which is out in Farmington.

[01:15:17] We will provide the address for everybody, but it’s gonna be at six 30 at night. All these events will be at six 30 at night, but this will be in, in Farmington, a suburb of Detroit on the 16th. So if you’re anywhere close, just mark your calendar and come join us on, uh, May 16th.

[01:15:31] Doug: Plan on taking the surface streets.

[01:15:33] ’cause 6 96 is under construction. Oh, really?

[01:15:35] OG: Again. Wow. Shocking.

[01:15:37] Doug: That never

[01:15:38] OG: happens. I haven’t been there in 11 years. I could’ve told you it was under construction.

[01:15:43] Doug: And then we head west. Young man. Yes.

[01:15:45] Joe: Kalamazoo where I grew up. Uh, we’ll do a meetup in Kalamazoo on the

[01:15:49] Doug: 17th. You aspired to grow up in Kalamazoo.

[01:15:53] You didn’t grow up in Kalamazoo. I didn’t. That was the big city for you. It was the big

[01:15:56] Joe: city. I grew up in a little town south of Kalamazoo, but you know what? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Kalamazoo, the big city of Kalamazoo, Michigan. We’ll be there. So Grand Rapids people. Come on down. You know, Doug, we had a lot of fun at Grand Rapids.

[01:16:09] We had a lot of fun. K

[01:16:10] Doug: Rapids was an awesome group. Yeah. We had a lot

[01:16:12] Joe: of fun in Kalamazoo. So come on down. Uh, gr people kazoos the

[01:16:15] Doug: 18th.

[01:16:15] Joe: Yep. That will be on the 18th. And, and more coming, uh, on, on. Exactly. No. 17th. 17th. Kalamazoo will be on the 17th. Yeah. Okay. So make sure that we got that. And then the next week on Thursday night, the 23rd, we’ll be in Boston.

[01:16:31] And I still don’t have a spot in Boston. We’re down to the final two though. And we’ve had some great help from our friends, uh, Carol, Ann and Gretchen, who, uh, have been helping me find a spot there.

[01:16:40] Doug: You have to go like to suburban Boston, like out to Springfield, mass or something to get a spot. Uh, possibly,

[01:16:47] Joe: possibly more, more, more there.

[01:16:49] Uh, we’re looking at, uh, specifically Medford and, uh, I can’t pronounce any of these names. People are gonna yell at me. Uh, Walham, is it Waltham? Walt Wal.

[01:17:01] OG: She Shire. Yes. Right.

[01:17:05] Doug: Well, Medford is where we were on the book tour. Uh, we were at the Medford Library. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. There. That wasn’t that fun for me to get to.

[01:17:12] There’s

[01:17:12] Joe: a microbrewery there that we’re talking to, and then we’re talking to one of Waltham, which is where my daughter is, uh, doing her masters out there. So at the microbrewery, that’s what’s going wrong. Can’t,

[01:17:26] Doug: can’t figure it out. But she seems to be having a great time. What else is going on in the Stacking Benjamins universe, Joseph?

[01:17:33] Joe: Well, we got a big thing that I really don’t want to talk about, and I know that, uh, people are, are wondering about. A couple weeks ago we had a discussion, um, about retiring at 62. It was a, it was a, uh, round table discussion featuring, uh, Paula Pant, Len Penso, and Benjamin Brant. We didn’t hear from Benjamin much.

[01:17:53] We certainly heard a lot. We heard a lot from Paula and Len and man, did we have a big discussion about sabbaticals in the basement while I was in Nepal hiking, uh, which is by the way, where I got this cold. Uh, that’s affected my voice right now. I love the fact that we had so many people comment about that.

[01:18:15] Because of the fact that, you know, when we start, when we start sharing these ideas back and forth, you could see how we all don’t have the same idea. We all have kind of a different take. And it was really neat to see all the different takes on this emotionally charged discussion that Paula and Len had.

[01:18:33] And I really appreciated everybody who, who decided to stop by either our, uh, Facebook group or the YouTube page. We saw it in the Afford Anything community as well. Everybody seemed to, uh, seemed to have an opinion on sabbaticals and your ability to take. Sabbaticals and whether you can do that or not, I wish we got this passionate about everything, about money.

[01:18:56] If we got this passionate all the time, guys, you know how great we’d all be with

[01:18:58] Doug: money. We’d usually, we just get passion that passionate when there isn’t money. That’s right. Yes. Right. And

[01:19:05] Joe: then we divorce. Yeah. But I do have some, some bad news out of that, which is Len been with the show for 14 years and partly because he’s been here for 14 years and he hasn’t been paid.

[01:19:16] Uh, we don’t pay our contributors, we don’t, they just show up and give their time. After 14 years, uh, Len has decided to, uh, uh, to not come back to the show. So Len will be here from time to time, but will no longer be a frequent contributor to the show. And I’ll just say this before people jump on online and give their 2 cents about what they think happened and either the quote, justice or injustice of this is that, uh, Steve Stewart, our amazing engineer.

[01:19:47] Karen Repine, our incredible producer and I, we took what was an 11 minute conversation and we played about three of it for you. So I will tell you this, you don’t know what happened in that conversation. There was a lot more Doug. You were there. Mm-Hmm. There was a lot more. It was, that happened that, um, we won’t get into.

[01:20:10] And the reason why we cut it out was because it didn’t feed the discussion, um, any more than the three minutes that we gave you. So we won’t be playing that more, but, but I do just want to tell people you don’t know the whole story. And I apologize that we’re not gonna be able to tell you the whole story, but I don’t think that it serves, it serves anybody.

[01:20:32] I love Lezo. I’m so happy that he stayed with us for as long as he did. The fact that somebody stayed on our show for that long, I thought was pretty kick ass. We will have next week we go on break and I do some good news about our break Doug. We’re going to play not three shows as usual. During our break, we’re gonna play five greatest, greatest hit shows.

[01:20:52] Whoa. We’re gonna go, does the

[01:20:53] Doug: Vinter know this? I know he’s gonna be, he, he unfortunately is the last guy to know. He’s gonna have to reschedule some kickball games, I think.

[01:21:02] Joe: Mom’s backyard. Yeah, it’s gonna be a whole different, whole different deal. But we’re going five days a week, uh, this time around on Greatest Hits Week.

[01:21:10] So you’re welcome. More stuff from us. We certainly have plenty of shows that you can go back and listen to. And we’ve got so many shows that, um, that, you know, when I look at the numbers, some shows get big hits, get a lot of people that listen to them. Others don’t get so many. And when you actually listen to these episodes, they’re shows that deserve to be listened to even more.

[01:21:30] So I’m super happy that we play those next week.

[01:21:32] Doug: I think I can fairly predict that if we’re doing our jobs, we’re gonna create more what vigorous discussions like we’ve had in the past. We’ll, we’ll probably have more of those ’cause we want people to really dig deep on thinking about their financial future and what is meaningful to them.

[01:21:52] So. Yeah. It’s our goal. It is our goal. So you’ll probably hear more of that, I would suspect, potentially. Not that we’re gonna try for that. Yeah. We don’t wanna create that situation. No.

[01:22:02] Joe: And I certainly don’t want people at each other’s throat, right? We don’t want that. But we cer we do want to reach that place that we got to where money’s a little emotionally charged because it isn’t about the math of money all the time.

[01:22:16] It’s often about the emotion and how we do the wrong thing emotionally. We let our emotions run the day. So if we can get to that point, I think that’s, that’s very helpful. We will talk about how we’re replacing Len Monday, that we get back. So in this segment of the show on Monday that we get back, we’ll have our announcement of, uh, our new contributor.

[01:22:36] So I’m super excited about where we head from here. And, uh, we should also say that, uh, well OG maybe, uh. You’ve been thinking about leaving the show.

[01:22:48] Doug: Wait, what are you talking about? You can’t just drop that bomb.

[01:22:58] Uh, I was just trying to get him in the, in the discussion. Don’t even crack the window for him.

[01:23:05] OG: I know, I know. Gee,

[01:23:07] Doug: og, og. Come

[01:23:08] OG: back. Wait, I can leave.

[01:23:13] I didn’t know that that was an option.

[01:23:15] Joe: Wait a minute, Len got to do it. Whoa.

[01:23:18] OG: Why does Len get to leave? I’ve been here longer than Len. I know. He’s

[01:23:23] Doug: starting a side gig of, uh, I think squirrel feeder porn, isn’t he right? That’s exactly right. Only squirrels. He’s full into retirement. He’s got his new side gig.

[01:23:33] It’s New Horizons, his only squirrels account.

[01:23:35] Joe: So, all right. That’s what’s going on on the back porch. Hope you guys can join us in Cleveland, Detroit, Kalamazoo, Boston, hopefully og you’re at all those events and, uh. Uh, Doug. What should we have learned today?

[01:23:50] Doug: Well, Joe, what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today?

[01:23:54] First, take some advice from our round table. Your phone can literally suck the life out of you. Consider turning off all forms of notifications. That darn thing is tough enough to ignore. We don’t need it barking at us to pick it up. Second, take some advice from Angelo Polley. What good is your money? If you aren’t healthy enough to enjoy it, put systems in place for your phone and your health, and you’ll be well on your way to enjoying those Benjamins.

[01:24:21] But what’s the biggest to do? I gotta do a podcast with Major League Baseball or something. Their budgets are just as SCO bigger than ours, thanks to Dana Ock. You can find more about dana@sensiblemoney.com. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Thanks to Rob Berger for coming on the show.

[01:24:45] You can find more about rob@robberger.com. Wow, Rob. Pretty unique URL there thanks to, I mean, he just teed it up for me. I had to take a swing. See more with the baseball team. Thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today. You’ll find her fabulous podcast. Afford Anything. Wherever you listen to the Finer podcasts, this show is the Property of SB Podcasts, LLC, copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy.

[01:25:15] Our producer is Karen, Repine. Karen and Joe. Get help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know.

[01:25:39] This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

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